Diversity in Language-Contrastive Studies in English and Arabic Theoretical Applied Linguistics

273 Pages·2009·13.18 MB·English

Diversity in Language
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Diversity in Language
Contrastive Studies
in Arabic and English
Theoretical
and Applied Linguistics
Edited by
Zeinab M. Ibrahim
Sabiha T. Aydelott
Nagwa Kassabgy
The American University in Cairo Press
Cairo • New York
The American University in Cairo Press
Cairo and New York
Copyright © 2000 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aim
Cairo, Egypt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the American University in Cairo Press.
Dar el Kutub No. 17881/99
ISBN 977 424 578 4
Printed in Egypt
Contents
Foreword v
Contributors vii
A Note on Transliteration and Transcription of
Arabic Words xi
Abbreviations xiv
Arabic Language: Distinctive Features
1 El-Said Badawi
An Opinion on the Meanings of i'rab in Classical Arabic: The
State of the Nominal Sentence. Summary in English 1
2 Huda M. M. Ghali
The Syntax of Colloquial Egyptian Proverbs 5
3 Devin Stewart
Understanding the Quran in English: Notes on Translation,
Form, and Prophetic Typology 31
Arabic and English: Comparative Studies
4 Nagwa Kassabgy and Mono Kamel Hassan
Relativization in English and Arabic: A Bidirectional Study 49
5 Mohammad Al-Khawalda
The Expression of Futurity in the Arabic and English Languages 70
6 Jehan Allam
A Sociolinguistic Study on the Use of Color Terminology in
Egyptian Colloquial and Classical Arabic 77
iv Contents
7 Nancy G. Hottel-Burkhart
The Canons of Aristotelian Rhetoric: Their Place in
Contrastive Arabic-English Studies 93
Writing: Learning Style and Form
8 Maha El-Seidi
Metadiscourse in English and Arabic Argumentative Writing:
A Cross-Linguistic Study of Texts Written by American and
Egyptian University Students 111
9 Cynthia May Sheikholeslami and Nabila el-Taher Makhlouf
The Impact of Arabic on ESL Expository Writing 127
10 Loubna Abdel-Tawab Youssef
Teaching "Form" in English Verse to Arabic Poetry Readers 147
Language Acquisition: Attitudes and Comprehension
11 Christopher W. Horger
Dialectal Analysis of Freshman Writing Students' Attitudes
toward American and British Dialects 162
12 Abdel-Hakeem Kasem
The Acquisition of the English Copula by Native Speakers of
Lebanese Arabic: A Developmental Perspective 179
13 Salwa A. Kamel
Categories of Comprehension in Argumentative Discourse:
A Cross-Linguistic Study 193
Follows English section
Foreword
The need for creating a forum for an exchange of ideas and understand-
ing in the fields of English and Arabic linguistics and teaching led to the
First International Conference on Contrastive Rhetoric, held at the
American University in Cairo (AUC), in February of 1999. This book
includes manuscripts based on some of the presentations made at that
conference as well as a number of papers by several other scholars. The
opinions and ideas expressed in the manuscripts do not necessarily reflect
our own, but we believe that they will contribute toward opening the field
for further research.
The focus of the book, which has been loosely organized into four sec-
tions, is on English and Arabic linguistics and teaching. The first section
focuses on the Arabic language: its philosophy of tense, syntax, and the
teaching of the Quran; the focus of the second section is on comparative
studies; the third section looks at writing; and the focus of the fourth sec-
tion is on language acquisition, especially in terms of learners' attitudes
and comprehension.
We would like to thank all the authors who submitted manuscripts,
including those whose papers are not part of this volume. We are partic-
ularly honored to include the contribution of Dr. El-Said Badawi, a dis-
tinguished scholar in the field of Arabic linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Our thanks also go to those who willingly gave of their time to review
the various manuscripts and provide us with valuable insights. The edi-
tors also appreciate the support received from Mr. Mark Linz, Ms.
Pauline Wickham, and Mr. Neil Hewison of the American University in
Cairo Press.
Finally, we dedicate this volume to our families, friends, and col-
leagues in the field. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to create
a forum for an exchange of ideas, and we hope this volume will inspire
future development in the fields of Arabic and English applied and theo-
retical linguistics as well as sociolinguistics.
Zeinab M. Ibrahim,
Sabiha T. Aydelnott,
Nagwa Kassabgy, editors
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Contributors
Jehan Allam ("A Sociolinguistic Study on the Use of Color Terminology
in Egyptian Colloquial and Classical Arabic") is a senior Arabic language
teacher in the American University in Cairo (AUC). Her research interests
include issues related to teaching and sociolinguistics. She is currently
involved in research on youngsters' effect on language.
Sabiha T. Aydelott (editor) teaches in the Freshmen Writing Program at
AUC. She has a doctorate in education, with specialization in reading and
writing, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has taught in
Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and the United States. Her research interests are in
reading assessment, diagnosis and remediation, comparative studies, and
reading and writing across the curriculum.
El-Said Badawi ("An Opinion on the Meanings of i'rab in Classical
Arabic: The State of the Nominal Sentence") is professor of Arabic lin-
guistics at AUC. He is the Director of the Arabic Language Institute
and Codirector of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA). His
book, Levels of Contemporary Arabic, is a landmark in the field of
Arabic linguistics.
Huda M. M. Ghaly ("The Syntax of Colloquial Egyptian Proverbs") is an
associate professor in the Department of English of the Faculty of Arts at
' Ain Shams University in Cairo. She received her Ph.D. in theoretical lin-
guistics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, in 1988. Her dissertation was titled A Syntactic Study of the
Nominal Piece and Its Temporals in dar'eyya Arabic Based on the Theory
of Government and Binding. She is the author of several articles that focus
on linguistic issues.
Mona Kamel Hassan ("Relativization in English and Arabic: A
Bidirectional Study") is an Arabic language instructor in the Arabic
Language Institute of the American University in Cairo and has done